Wounds of Youth
by Kate Alexandra
Summary: In the aftermath of Dark Ones, the Underworld and being separated again, Killian and Emma have a lot to talk about now that they have a quiet moment. So they decide to start at the beginning. CS Hiatus Challenge Prompt Day 28: Phoenix, Arizona Also weekly prompt: Emma's Past


_Home_. After the madness of the last few months, it was strange to be alone in their house. Their home. Killian packed up his belongings and they moved them from the Jolly and settled into their bedroom, exhaustion claiming them quickly the first day. Killian awoke with the dawn, no matter how poorly he slept, and when he tried to leave the bed, Emma panicked.

"I'm an old sailor, love. Centuries worth of habit is hard to break," Killian joked. He lay on his side facing her, hand buried in her golden locks. Killian couldn't help himself; the morning light danced on her hair and skin, illuminating her beauty even more now she was relaxed and unburdened.

"Killian, please come back to sleep. Don't leave." She mumbled and curled closer to his chest, head resting where his heart pulsed a steady cadence. Emma knew he wouldn't leave but her head still hadn't reconciled with what her heart had accepted. She had already woken them both in the night with her panic attack. Killian held her until they both had fallen asleep again. He held her tightly, both of them going back to sleep once she was calm again.

Killian was the one to wake her the second time. They had drifted apart in sleep and he was thrashing and screaming against the sheets. Emma cupped his face in her hands, gently coaxing him out of his nightmare. Emma could still see the terror in his eyes for several minutes after he was fully conscious. Not wanting to leave their bed, Emma summoned food for them. Killian tried to protest but the growling of their stomachs wasn't something they could ignore any longer. Emma took a deep breathe and decided on the next course of action. _Wounds that are made when we're young tend to linger._ Perhaps was best to start at the beginning and work their way to more recent events.

"I think we need to talk. About everything. Absolutely no secrets. Not anymore."

"Aye, love," Killian agreed. Killian decided he would tell his tale first; starting with his earliest memories of his family, his mother who died when he was young, the father who abandoned him and his life as a slave. Emma had known quite a bit about Killian during his Navy days, but Killian never really talked about life before that. Emma was certainly surprised by the depth of Killian's education in the Royal Naval Academy (he knew Latin _and_ Greek, seriously!), though wasn't at all surprised by his quick progression to lieutenant. They talked in detail about his first encounter with Pan and his brother's death. Sleep came to them eventually. Killian woke Emma a few hours later, shared the food she had procured and resumed the story. Emma listened with fascination to the recollection of his pirate days. That led to Milah.

Killian's chest felt a dull ache when he told of first meeting Milah, falling in love with her, her transition to pirate and her demise at Rumplestiltskin's hands. Killian looked away as tears fell. He still felt guilt because she had been damned for helping him escape his Underworld prison.

"Killian, look at me," Emma whispered, "It's okay to feel grief. You loved her so much and you lost her twice. You wouldn't be the man I love if you didn't feel her loss as much as you do."

With Emma's reassurance, he pressed on with his story. Neverland was a difficult part to explain. Killian reluctantly disclosed how he came to meet Baelfire. Killian was certain it had been several years that they had before his careless placement of a drawing of Milah brought about an end of their good relationship. His shame at then trading him to Pan. He was thankful that before Neal had died, they had at least put things to rights and parted on good terms. He told her as much as he could after that, the passing of time in Neverland being as it was, a lot of his time there blurred together.

Emma passed out again right as he reached the point he came back to the Enchanted Forest a few years before Regina's curse. Killian awoke to the sounds of the shower, Emma surprisingly awake before him. They hadn't followed the time of day very much over the past few days, having talked through the night several times, watching the dawn from the window seat in their room that overlooked the harbor. They talked, ate, showered, slept and then repeated it all over after the spell of sleep could no longer keep them entranced.

Showered separately. Simply slept (restless as it was). The limit of their intimacy that of never straying far from the bed and each other's touch.

Emma finished her shower and found Killian awake in the bed, a conflicted look etched into his features. Emma knew he was conflicted about their sex life (or lack thereof) and she couldn't blame him. Emma knew she missed him and now felt like the right moment. She dropped her towel and enjoyed the feeling as his blue eyes took in the sight of her naked body.

Killian was off the bed and crossed the distance to her in two short strides. Suddenly they were kissing and he lifted her up, arms supporting her arse as she wrapped her legs around his midsection. Intentions of taking this part slow be damned. He pushed her onto the bed, divested himself of his sleeping pants and found himself making sure she was ready for him. His fingers slid easily through her damp folds, thumb flicking over her clit vigorously until he had her falling apart.

Emma pushed his hand away and drew him to her. He slid home in one delicious thrust. Emma grasped his ass, urging him to move. He began moving and Emma relished the excruciatingly slow drag of him against her walls. She whined and he picked up the pace, hips snapping in a rapid rhythm. Killian couldn't hold himself back any longer. He adjusted his angle slightly and knew he found the right spot as Emma's pleas devolved into unintelligible pants and moans. Thank goodness Emma had cast a silencing charm because their cries of pleasure as they came could have been heard across town otherwise. Basking in the afterglow of sex, sleep claimed them both once more.

After that Killian resumed the recounting of his past up until he meet her in the Enchanted Forest and the missing year when everyone had gone back. Interspersed with that they ate, showered (together), made love (sometimes they simply fucked), slept and then repeated. Though they promised to hold no secrets, Killian simply wasn't ready to discuss their time as Dark Ones or the aftermath of that and to be honest, neither was Emma.

So Emma relayed her past to him. He sat silently encouraging her through every part, as apt a listener as he was storyteller. She explained her first family (the origin of her last name), being sent back and living in foster homes off and on until she ran away at age thirteen. Encounters with Lily (the good, the bad and the ugly), Ingrid giving her a home, the explanation of how things with that had gone south and how she resorted to a life of crime after that to survive. She began to detail how she and Neal met, fell in love and became partners in crime. Tears couldn't stop as she told him of what happened when the shit really hit the fan. Childhood's end, that's what it had been. Life had gotten very real, very quickly.

"You're the first person I've ever told this whole story to," Emma started. "I had offered to retrieve the watches so we could sell them and use the money to start over. We were going to find a home together in Tallahassee, Florida. I didn't know it at the time, but August, Pinocchio, convinced Neal that he needed to leave me so I could complete my destiny and break the curse as his father intended. So he set me up to take the fall for the theft and I was sent to jail for eleven months but only because I was a minor. I didn't see him again until New York when we discovered who he really was."

Killian felt both anger and sadness at what had happened to her at the hands of someone she had loved, some they had both loved. He had known she was young but knowing how old Neal had been in this world, he couldn't help feel Neal had taken advantage of Emma.

"How old were you?" Quick calculations based on hers and Henry's birthdays told him what he needed to know and the thought made him sick to his stomach. He paced the floor waiting for her answer.

"I was sixteen when arrested, seventeen when Henry was born. I didn't know I was pregnant until I was in jail. I decided to give Henry up because I didn't think I would be any good at being a mother. I hadn't had the best situation growing up so I had nothing to go on."

Killian returned to the bed and pulled Emma into his arms. "You are an amazing mother. I'm sorry you had to go through that alone. Do your parents know? Surely they wouldn't have named your brother as they had knowing this tale."

Emma shook her head, "No, they don't know."

"I think they need to know. Everything that you've gone through. The good and the bad. Think of it as part of loving without walls, without armor. You need to let them know you, Emma." Killian said, pulling back to look in her eyes.

"This is one particular story I don't want to have to tell Henry. He knows the gist of it, but I don't want to ruin how he sees his father," Emma cried.

"It's not something he needs to know now, but someday he may ask and you'll have to be prepared for that day," Killian could read her hesitation and cut her off before she could finish forming the words, "It's not lying to your lad if you explain that the tale is one best suited for when he is older. That you won't lie to him should the time come that he asks again." Emma felt relief that he wasn't suggesting she also tell Henry now.

Emma agreed she needed to talk to her parents and it was perhaps best if done while in her current frame of mind. Emma felt a sense of regret, leaving their bedroom for the first time in days, as though they were slowly coming back to reality. Killian sent a message to David and asked if he and Snow could come over to their house so they could talk. It felt strange to interact with people after days of seclusion but this was family and it was important for Emma's relationship with her parents that they know her and her past.

Twenty minutes later, Emma greeted her parents with a hug, grateful that her brother had been left in Regina's care for a few hours.

"I'm sure you wondered why we asked you to come over. Killian and I have been talking very openly about our pasts and I know that is something we've never done. So I want to tell you."

Emma started at the beginning as she had with Killian. Killian sat close beside her at the kitchen table, his hand never losing contact with her, resting it on her arm, her shoulder or waist. By the time she reached the course of events that landed her in a Phoenix prison, her mother was holding her hand, tears streaming down her face and her father seething, could barely conceal his rage so he sat with fists clenched in front of him on the table.

Emma didn't stop there, she told them of her journey after jail up until she had come to Storybrooke. Emma felt relief at telling her parents about her life. It hadn't been easy to do and she knew it couldn't have been easy to hear but her mother had told her once that what's easy isn't always right and sometimes you have to take the hard path. Killian was right that she needed to tell them.

Killian could see a visible change in Emma now that she had told her parents of her childhood. A weight had been lifted and as they bid them good evening, Killian realized how the last several days had affected them both. He and Emma had talked before but never so honest or openly and Killian was hopeful. Killian knew they still had a lot to discuss and decide about their future but healing had finally begun.


End file.
